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When it comes to backing up apps, the selection is few. It’s good to know that those few are all actually pretty good. Perhaps the most famous of which is Titanium Backup. Now, Titanium Backup will be getting some real competition from an application called Carbon Backup from Koushik Dutta, developer of ClockworkMod Recovery.

It is still a work in progress, but a lot of improvements have been made for Carbon Backup. Beta 3 of the app has just been released and it has a myriad of fun new features. It is mostly performance enhancements and bug fixes. However, there are some other new features. Among these is Box.net support. Also, backup and restore processes are now shown in the notifications.

Perhaps the biggest feature is that you can now easily back up your apps without rooting your phone. This is a huge deal. Since backing up applications is a primary excuse to root one’s device, the ability to do so without requiring root could be huge.

If you’d like to watch rather than read, the video that shows how this works is posted at the bottom. Using a desktop it’s possible to backup applications without root. It requires installing the Android SDK and learning some ADB.

Carbon Backup allows for this process to occur with a friendly user interface. In case it’s not obvious, you’ll need a computer for it. Then it’s a matter of connecting the phone app to the computer app and then back up all you want to.

When will Carbon Backup hit the Google Play Store?

The current beta release of Carbon Backup is timed and will expire on January 30th. Koushik plans to have it on Google Play by then. Word has it that there will be a free version and a paid version. So there will be permanent and easy access soon.

As stated, the app is still in beta. When it becomes a full release, that’s when things will get really interesting. While it may be just a guess, it’s not ridiculous to believe that this could be a legitimate competitor of Titanium Backup and apps like it.

Has anyone given this a try or is anyone planning on giving this a try when it hits the Play Store next week? Let us know what you think about Carbon Backup.